Autumnal Blackberry and Apple Crumble

Blackberry and apple crumble is one of my favourite ever dishes, it’s such a comforting autumnal pudding. One of the best things about this dessert is how local all the fruit is to me – blackberries grow in the hedgerows down my lane this time of year, and we have two apple trees in our garden. This recipe is roughly based on one by Raymond Blanc, but don’t worry, it’s far from complicated! The only difference from a simple crumble recipe is that in his recipe he cooks his apples and blackberries in sugar, butter and cinnamon before baking it, which gives the crumble an extra yum factor. This blackberry and apple crumble is pretty big, it serves about 10, but just half the ingredients if you want a smaller crumble.

2. To start making the fruit filling, peel and chop your apples into small pieces that are roughly the same size, about 3cm is fine.

3. Put the butter and sugar into a saucepan and melt together over a medium heat. Cook for about 3 mins until the mixture turns to a light caramel (I used light soft brown sugar because we had run out of demerara sugar and it worked just as well).

4. Stir in the apples and cook for 3 mins.

5. Add the blackberries and cinnamon and cook for 3 minutes.

6. Pour into your pie dish and set aside whilst you make your crumble topping.

7. Stir the flour and sugar together in a bowl, then add the butter and rub it into the flour mixture with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumb consistency. I used an electric whisk so you can do this if you cut yourself whilst peeling apples you’re lazy too. Then add the oats and stir them through.

8. Top the fruit filling with the crumble mix and then bake the crumble for about 30 minutes, or until the crumble topping is a light brown colour.

9. Enjoy!!

If you missed my last baking post you can find it here, I baked Tanya Burr’s Cappuccino Cake and it’s amazing.